How to Make Beer Like a Pro: Complete Guide to Home Brewing – Even in Small Spaces

This book is guaranteed to answer all your questions about home brewing! If you are just getting started, Randy Frank can help you. He goes over the history of home brewing, equipment, processes with steps, sanitation, clubs and laws by country, Brewing history, step by step processes such as extract beer brewing, partial mash, as well as all-grain beer brewing, cost and sanitation considerations, home brew kits, home brew equipment and sanitation, brewing clubs and home brewing laws by country

While there is some good content in this book, it gets repetitive in places. Once or twice could be overlooked, but it got to a point that I was actually looking for the repetition. There is a summary section at the end of each chapter as well, where the information is not so much summarized as repeated (again). Coupled with spelling and grammatical errors, this book was difficult to read. A little more attention to grammar and structure, and this could be an great read.

This book contains some very basic information which can easily be found in greater detail on the web. There is nothing new in what is presented. Organization is good, details are often skimmed over, and typographical errors abound. Likewise, some of his definitions are lacking. Partial mashing is more than just steeping grains. Better choices for beginning brewers would be Palmer’s “How to Brew” or Papazian’s books.

I’m very happy I found this book. I bought it and immediately started reading it because I’ve been interested in home brewing for a long time! This is a step by step, informative book on brewing. It starts with the purchasing of equipment. I’m going to start with the beginners and go from there. It gives you method options and I especially loved the pictures that showed me exactly what I should get as well as charts for color that you can use to compare with your brew. It goes step by step through cleaning, bottling, kegging, and ingredients. And as a bonus at the end it lists brewers guilds and associations AND their phone numbers. Also, if you get confused on terms there is a glossary. This is seriously the book to buy if you are considering trying home brewing or if you’ve been doing it already. It is so informative and easy to follow the process. Well done!